Pixar Unveils Dazzling Land of the Dead in New Coco Trailer

The latest teaser for Pixar’s Coco starts on a small, intimate scale reminiscent of the quiet intro to Wall-E. In both films, a lonely figure—boy or robot—takes comfort in well-worn VHS tape and the music they find there. In this case, it’s deceased fictional Mexican superstar Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt), not Hello Dolly, providing solace. But after Coco transports viewers to that familiar, emotional Pixar place with just a few seconds of footage, the trailer opens up wide to introduce the massive Land of the Dead, where Coco and his loyal canine sidekick will have the bulk of their adventures.

Coco is a supernatural story that follows Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) as he travels to the Land of the Dead after stealing his ancestor’s guitar turns the boy into a ghost-like figure himself. His family can no longer see him, but Miguel can now see all of his dead ancestors—who look like fantastically decorative skeletons—crossing over a bright bridge made of marigold flower petals. Looking for help and answers, Miguel travels to the Land of the Dead—a dazzlingly vibrant, stacked metropolis inspired by the Mexican city of Guanajuato—himself and sets off an adventure with trickster skeletal companion Hector (Gael García Bernal) to find the rest of his family, de la Cruz, and the answer to how he can fix this curse.

Speaking with Vanity Fair about his hopes for how Coco might resonate in a post-election America last December, director Lee Unkrich said: “The best way to bring people in and have them empathize with others is through storytelling. If we can tell a good story with characters audiences can care about, I’d like to think that prejudices can fall aside and people can just experience the story and these characters for the human beings that they are.” Of the cast of characters inspired by the real-life Mexican relatives of some of the Coco animation team, co-director Adrian Molina added: “This family is my family. The reason I love them is the reason I love my family, and I hope it’s the reason the world will love a family like mine. I think that nothing bad can come from opening your heart to a story. I think only good can come from putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.”

Coco premieres November 22, 2017.

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